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Design and Comparison of Axial-Flux Permanent Magnet Motors for In-

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 No. E-14-AAA-0000

Design and Comparison of Axial-Flux Permanent

Magnet Motors for In-Wheel Electric Vehicles by
3D-FEM

S.M. JafariShiadeh, M. Ardebili

Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering
K. N. Toosi University of Technology
Tehran, Iran
smjafarishiade@gmail.com

Abstract— Axial-flux permanent-magnet brushless-dc (AFPM

BLDC) machines with concentrated windings are very attractive
choices for direct-drive applications due to their high torque-
density, high efficiency, and extreme compact construction.
Particularly they are suitable to be used in in-wheel electric
vehicles. For this purpose two different AFPM BLDC machine
topologies are designed, and cogging torque, back-electromotive
force (back-EMF), winding inductance, and output torque are
obtained for the two 3.4 kW motors. High precision three-
dimensional (3-D) finite-element analysis is used to achieve the
performance of two motor topologies accurately.

Keywords— axial flux permanent magnet, direct drive electric

vehicle, cogging torque, 3-D finite element, torque

I. INTRODUCTION
Recently, axial-flux PM (AFPM) machine technology is
developing. Axial-flux PM machines provide high efficiency,
compact construction, and high torque at low speed [1-2].
Axial-flux PM machine has a high torque density compared
with radial-flux PM machine and is an attractive choice
especially when an electrical machine has to be directly
mounted in to a mechanical machine. Good heat removal
configuration along with similar aspect ratio makes AFPM
machine particularly suitable for in-wheel direct drive electric
vehicles [3]. Also they are suitable choices to be used in more
electric aircrafts and direct-drive wind turbines [4-5].
AFPM machines which have fractional number of slots per
pole and a concentrated non-overlapping winding have low
cogging torque, short end-windings, and hence, a low copper
loss, a high efficiency, and a high power density. However,
lamination fabrication is more difficult for AFPM machines
compared with their radial counterparts. Recently, the advent
of soft magnetic composite (SMC) with high saturation flux
density enabled researchers with new designs for novel AFPM
machines, as an alternative to axially laminated steel cores.
SMC allows genuine 3-D flux paths. The machine considered
in this paper, shown in Fig. 1, is an SMC-based AFPM
machine with a yokeless and segmented armature (YASA)
topology which is used as a high-efficiency in-wheel electric
drive for electric vehicle propulsion [6-9].
Fig. 1. Considered AFPM machine with YASA topology. (1) Rotor, (2)
permanent-magnet, (3) stator segment, and (4) winding
In this paper two 3.4 kW at 1200 rpm novel AFPM
machines, based on YASA topology, are designed for direct
drive electric propulsion for lightweight electric vehicles. PM
brushless-dc (BLDC) machines are considered for
investigation in this research as they are known for high
torque-density compared with PM BLAC machines [10]. The
investigation is carried out for two PM topologies: 15-slot/10-
pole motor and 12-slot/10-pole motor. The 15-slot/10-pole
machine represents conventional PM BLDC machines in
which ratio of slot number to pole number is 3:2, and results in
an easy winding configuration. The 12-slot/10-pole machine
represents modular PM BLDC machines with similar slot
number and pole number, which results in high winding
factor. Cogging torque, flux linkage, back-EMF, winding
inductance, and static torque are investigated for the two 3.4
kW 10-pole AFPM BLDC motors, using high precision three-
dimensional finite-element analysis.
II. ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARACTERISTICS
Four axial-flux motors are considered to be placed in the
four vehicle wheels. To estimate the performance and
 Paper Title
29th Power System Conference - 2014 Tehran, Iran

approximate required torque of the axial-flux motors, a simple As the all-electric vehicle is expected to reach 45 km/h
vehicle model load is considered. The electric vehicle load (=12.56 m/s) in 9 seconds, we have:
model consists of rolling resistance (also called rolling
friction or rolling drag), aerodynamic drag, and climbing
resistance. The road slope and hence the climbing resistance is d
F  70  0.177 2  700 
considered to be zero. The electric vehicle characteristics are dt
given in Table I.   
d
9 12.56
dt
Aerodynamic drag: The drag force exerted on any moving 0 700  0 F  70  0.177 2
 F  1050 N
object in a fluid (gas or liquid), usually appears as a
depreciatory force. About 60 percent of the required power for As there are four axial-flux motors considered to be placed
high speed motion in vehicles is used to overcome in the wheels, and the output radius of the axial-flux motor is
aerodynamic drags. The aerodynamic drag on moving object 95 mm, the approximate torque of 25 Nm is required for each
(vehicle) in a fluid (air) is obtained by: motor.

1 III. MACHINE DESIGN

 FD   2Cd A 
2 To compare machine performances, machines are
where FD is the drag force, ρ is the fluid mass density, v is the
speed of the object relative to the fluid, Cd is aerodynamic
drag coefficient, and A is the frontal area of the object. The air
mass density at 25 °C and 1 atm pressure is 1.185 kg/m3. The
frontal area depends on the vehicle‟s body shape and is
usually taken between 0.25 and 0.45 for automobiles.
Rolling resistance: Rolling resistance is the force resisting
a motion when an object (such as a wheel, ball, etc.) is rolling
on a surface. This feature is mainly created due to non-elastic
characteristics, i.e. all the energy required for deformation of
the wheel will not be recovered when the pressure is removed.
The rolling resistance is obtained as:
 Fr  Crr Nr 
where Fr is the rolling resistance, Crr is the rolling resistance
coefficient, and Nr is the normal force perpendicular to the
surface.
The electric vehicle is considered to accelerate from 0 to
45 km/h in 9 s. So to achieve the propulsion force (F) we
have:
d
 F  Fr  FD  M c  
dt
TABLE I. ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARACTERISTICS

considered to have the same dimensions, magnetic and electric
loading. The investigation is carried out for a 15-slot/10-pole
AFPM motor (motor A) and a 12-slot/10-pole AFPM motor
(motor B). The derivation of the sizing equation follows a
similar form to the sizing equation as in [7]:
 2 nplm  Ro2  Ri2  Ri   s lm Br 
 P lbar JK f  s Br 1   
60  lm  g '  
  lm  g '  Bs 

where P is the output power, n is machine speed, Ro, Ri are
stator outer and inner radius respectively, lbar is winding axial
length, J is winding current density, Kf is winding fill factor, lm
is magnet thickness and g’ is effective air gap length, Br and Bs
 are magnet residual flux density and maximum no load stator
core flux density. The stator, magnet outer to inner diameter
ratio is chosen as 0.58 for maximum specific torque, in
equation (5). A larger air-gap reduces the air-gap flux density
which means a larger PM is required to produce the same flux
density and increases the cost. Air gap length is set to 1.5 mm
due to mechanical constraints.
Cogging torque is one of the main contributors to the
torque ripple in PM motors, which is caused by the
interactions between PMs and stator teeth. Pole arc to pole
pitch ratio has significant effect on cogging torque. In this
research cogging torque of machines are set at their minimum
for different configuration. The optimum ratios of pole arc to
pole pitch for minimizing cogging torque for a given slot and
pole number is [11]:

Vehicle weight 500 kg N  k1

 p   k2 , k1  1, 2,..., N  1  
Passengers weight 200 kg N

Full load weight (Mc)
Frontal area
Aerodynamic drag coefficient
Rolling resistance coefficient
700 kg where N=Nc/2p , Nc is the least common multiple (LCM)
between pole number (2p) and slot number (Ns), and k2 is a
1 m2 constant that ranges from 0.01 to 0.03 depending on air-gap
0.3
length [11]. The optimum ratios of pole arc to pole pitch for
minimizing cogging torque is shown in Table II. The common
0.01 pole arc to pole pitch ratio of 0.7 was chosen for this study.

2
 Paper Title
29th Power System Conference - 2014 Tehran, Iran

TABLE II. OPTIMUM POLE ARC TO POLE PITCH RATIOS

 w  r  2
 Ns
 2sin 1 ds 

2r   

15-slot/10-pole 0.36 , 0.7 The design parameters are given in Table III. There are
12-slot/10-pole 0.19, 0.36, 0.53, 0.7, 0.86 different ways to realize a motor with concentrated windings.
It is assumed that the design is performed for three-phase
motors with balanced windings which have two coils sides in
each slot. The angles of the kth coil for the concentrated
Slot opening is taken to be 4mm. The spacing between the windings are defined as
stator segment shoes is expected to affect the overload
capacity, and also cogging torque. Greater spacing prevents
the flux leakage between the shoes and increases overload 2p
capacity, while at the same time increases cogging torque.  c  k    k  1 180o E
Choosing optimum slot dimensions requires extensive  Ns  
considerations and analysis and is out of the scope of this for k  1, 2,..., N s
research.
where 2p is the number of poles and Ns is the number of slots.
By neglecting the leakage flux, the total air-gap flux per
pole can be calculated as the product of the flux density and With respect to (11) and for having balanced windings, the
area of the permanent magnet: 3-phase winding arrangement is ABCABCABCABCABC for
the 15-slot/10-pole machine, while it is
AA/C/CBB/A/ACC/B/B for the 12-slot/10-pole machine.
Ro2  Ri2
  g  Bgap  Ave Apm  Bgap  ave p   The winding factors Kwn can be achieved as
2p

To prevent the back-iron saturation, as shown in Figure 2, Ncph

1
the magnetic flux density through back-iron can be expressed
as:  K wn 
N cph
e
k 1
 jnc  k 
 

 ir  Bir Air  Bir lir  Ro  Ri    where Ncph represents number of coils per phase, and n is the
order of harmonics.
where Bir is the back-iron magnetic flux density. As φg = 2φir
and combining Eqns. (7) and (8), the required back-iron length
is driven by:
TABLE III. MOTOR PARAMETERS

Bgap  ave  r  Motor type A B

 lir   Ri  Ro   
Bir 4p Number of poles 10 10
Number of slots 15 12
Parallel stator slot-openings are used so that high filling No-load Voltage , V 50 50
factor can be achieved. When parallel slot-openings are Rated phase current, A 34 34
employed, the ratio of the slot-opening width to the slot-pitch
Rated rotational speed, rpm 1200 1200
is a function of radius. The tooth widths at every radius (r) can
be obtained as: Stator outer radius, mm 95 95
Stator inner radius, mm 55 55
Slot-opening, mm 4 4
Tooth width at average radius, mm 27.41 35.27
pole-arc to pole-pitch ratio 0.7 0.7
Air gap, mm 1.5 1.5
Magnet axial length, mm 5 5
Magnet remanence, T 1.22 1.22
Number of turns per coil 20 25
Bar length, mm 32 32
Filling factor 0.65 0.65
Back-iron thickness, mm 10 10
Figure 2. Rotor back-iron thickness

3
 Paper Title
29th Power System Conference - 2014 Tehran, Iran

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS periods per revolution is 30, while it is 60 for machine B.
Analytical methods have been used to study and predict Cogging torque waveforms for the motors were obtained using
the performance of machines, especially for initial design 3-D finite-element analysis as shown in Figure 5. As can be
process or optimization of machine parameters. If saturation seen in Figure 5, high cogging torque frequency reduces the
effects, stator and rotor slots, or exact geometric sizes are not level of the cogging torque. The peak to peak cogging torque
neglected, the analytical methods will be very complex. To of motor A is about 1 Nm for machines A with conventional
solve this problem and obtain results in this study for accurate pole and slot numbers, while it is about 0.2 Nm for machine B
comparison of two motor topologies, the finite-element with similar pole number and slot number. So machines with
method is used which applies a precise analysis of magnetic similar pole number and slot number have lower cogging
materials considering geometric details and magnetic torque due to higher LCM.
nonlinearity. As axial-flux PM machines are inherently 3-D
machines, a 3-D finite-element model was developed using
software MAXWELL to study the accurate performance of the TABLE IV COMPARISON OF WINDING FACTORS
machines. Harmonic order
Motor Type
n=1 n=3 n=5 n=7
Table IV shows the winding factors for the fundamental Motor A 0.866 0 -0.866 0.866
and harmonics for the two motors. It can be seen that motor B, Motor B 0.933 0.5 0.067 0.067
having similar pole and slot combination, has higher
fundamental winding factor which results in higher flux
linkage and hence higher torque.
Torque quality of AFPM machines, which is directly
related to the torque ripple components, is of high importance.
Torque ripple, which is the torque pulsation caused by the
periodic components in the instantaneous torque of the
machine, could result in vibration, noise, and even failure. The
torque ripple of PM BLDC machine constitutes two different
components, back-EMF related torque ripple, and cogging
torque which is unaffected by the load. The contribution of
these components in toque ripple is investigated in following.

A. Phase back-EMF and Line back-EMF

Phase back-EMF is computed by the no-load change rate
of flux linkage through the corresponding coils. Phase-back-
EMF and line back-EMF waveforms of the motors are Figure 3. Phase back-EMF waveforms by 3-D finite-element
obtained and are shown in Figures 3 and 4; respectively. As in
brushless-dc operation, only two phases conduct at each time,
line back-EMF waveform will define the average
electromagnetic torque and also back-EMF related torque
ripple. It is seen in Fig. 4 that motor A has approximately flat
top area, while machine B has sinusoidal top area. So machine
B with similar pole number and slot number will have higher
back-EMF related torque ripple.

B. Winding Inductances and Cogging Torque

Table V shows self and mutual inductances of the
machines obtained by 3-D finite-element model. It is seen that
machine B has higher self-inductance which can limit short
circuit current better than machine A. Also machine B has
lower mutual-inductance which will isolate phases from each
other more effectively compared to motor A. So motor B with
similar pole number and slot number provide higher fault
tolerance capability. Figure 4. Line back-EMF waveforms by 3-D finite-element
The number of cogging torque periods per rotor revolution
is equal to the LCM (least common multiple) of poles number
and slots number. Higher cogging torque frequency leads to TABLE V COMPARISON OF SELF AND MUTUAL INDUCTANCES
lower magnitude. It should be mentioned that for computing Motor Type Self-inductance (mH) Mutual inductance (mH)
cogging torque waveforms having extremely low amplitude, Motor A 0.631 0.251
mesh density in the finite element analysis has to be Motor B 1.21 0.106
significantly high. In machine A the number of cogging torque

4
 Paper Title
29th Power System Conference - 2014 Tehran, Iran
Figure 5. Cogging torque waveforms obtained for (a) motor A (b) motor B
C. Output Torque
Torque waveform has dominant information about motor
performance including torque average and torque ripple, and
the motor choice for different applications can be based on it.
Machines considered in this research are supplied with 120˚
rectangular phase current waveforms (to simulate brushless-dc
operation) with 34-A amplitude. The output torque was
obtained as shown in Figure 6. Maximum torque, minimum
torque, average torque and torque ripple of the motors are
given in Table VI. It is seen that motor B with similar pole
number and slot has higher torque value due to higher winding
factor, while motor A with conventional pole and slot
combination has low torque ripple which makes it a good
candidate for applications where low noise and vibration is
important.
V. CONCLUSION
Analysis and comparison of AFPMBLDC machines
having conventional slot and pole combination or similar slot
and pole combination, was presented in this paper. The
comparison is done for two 10-pole machines with the same
PM dimension and phase current. It is shown that machines
with similar slot and pole combination can better fulfill fault
tolerance capability. Also machines with similar slot and pole
combination have higher torque average which makes them
appropriate for applications requiring high torque-density.
Machines with conventional slot and pole combination have
lower torque ripple which make them a good candidate where
less noise and vibration is desired.
View publication stats
Fig. 6. Output torque waveforms by 3-D finite-element model
TABLE VI COMPARISON OF MOTOR PERFORMANCES
Motor Type Tmax(Nm) Tmin(Nm) Tave(Nm) Tripple(%)
Motor A 21.33 19.7 20.26 8.05
Motor B 24.05 20.8 22.58 14.39
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